We have a winner! Or three!

The prizes for most impressive international growth, most investable, and best living lab experience are to be awarded during the 2015 Annual EBN Congress, on the 30th October in Brussels. Don't miss out on your chance to come and meet these talented entrepreneurs at our very own ACE booth!

You will also have the chance to meet the three #ACEAward winners at their stand during the #EBNCongress and hear first-hand from these ACE high flyers about their experience in the programme.

Interested? Come and meet our most impressive start-ups and learn about their internationalisation successes in Brussels, while discussing the future of innovation and entrepreneurship with many thought-leaders and policy makers. Register until 21st October at www.ebncongress.eu .

More info about the #EBNCongress and how to register available here. Don't forget to announce your presence using #ACEAward and #EBNCongress and come cheer for our entrepreneurs in just three weeks!

2010, Haiti, the country suffers a devastating earthquake. Images of the chaos are broadcasted worldwide showing people in the rubble and nobody to help them.

At that time, Zbynek Poulícek was searching for a topic for his thesis. The earthquake happened during the development of his product for the Imagine Cup. After seeing footage from Haiti he decided with his friends Boris Procházka and Petra Bacíková Cerná. that they would use the programme mapping software they had developed for use in tourism GINA (Geographical Information Assistant) to assist emergency and security agencies.

They entered their project into the Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition, whose objective is . to motivate students, with the help of modern technology, to come up with practical solutions to global problems.

The GINA technology won the national round, draw the attention of the BBC and was glowingly mentioned by Bill Gates. The humanitarian organisation Hands for Help then used it in practice for dealing with the consequences of the earthquake in Haiti. It was deployed again in the wake of the tsunami that struck Japan, and the company is looking at more ways access to real-time geographic data can help people and organizations.

TodayThe flagship product of the company, GINA System, is available worldwide. In addition to the EU, the company has sales representatives in Haiti and Japan. Its main business partners are Motorola Solutions, Ercom (France) and Microsoft.

Today the system is used not only by the emergency services, but also by naturalists mapping the incidence of rare species. In the South Moravia region it has become part of the integrated rescue system and helps fire fighters and the rescue services coordinate their joint actions.

Although it has been on the market for only a few years, GINA has won a tender from the United Nations (UN). From 2015 members of the UNDP (the United Nations Development Programme) agency began to use the system in Haiti. Using portable hardware such as a tablet and GINA software interlinks responding units and locates people and vehicles in the field.

The selected finalists will be awarded a cash prize and special support measures

With over 100 companies supported to date and many still in the pipeline, the ACE project is striving to provide long standing and sustainable support to its companies. The ACE Award, recognising excellence in early-stage internationalisation of our ICT SMEs is currently open for nominations.

18 months well into the Programme, ACE has many stories to tell. 2015 has brought a new open call for candidates, a second edition of the ACE Summit and roughly 70 more enterprises supported by our international mentors. ACE’s success has also been highly endorsed: 92% of supported companies recommend ACE to another fellow start-up and half of them rated our impact on internationalisation as high or excellent.

Second ACE Summit opening in Milan with Jim Ward from DublinBIC

ACE is Selecting, Again!

The second ACE call for candidates was opened in December 2014 with the first cut off at 25 January 2015 through the F6S platform. This first round gathered 100+ applications from start-ups and SMEs across Europe, 70 of which are advancing through their tailor-made ACE Programme. This second call for companies focused mainly (but not only) in providing support to enterprises in countries outside of the ACE consortium and where cross border investment opportunities could be identified.

In March 2015, newly selected companies were assigned an experienced mentor in their nearest ACE partner country ahead of the ACE Summit 2.0 in Milan, where they had the chance to meet for their first mentorship sessions. This ‘local’ mentor had the task to analyse their internationalisation strengths and weaknesses and developed an individual internationalisation action plan to be put in place with the help of the ACE support network.

ACE Summit 2.0

On 18 March 2015, newly selected ACE companies, mentors, investors and other potential partners converged at the second ACE Summit in Milan, in the framework of the Global Entrepreneurship Congress. Attended by over 100 participants, the Summit was the first occasion for the new ACE companies, mentors and investors to meet each other and discuss how to work together to take their businesses global.

At the Summit, the companies had the opportunity to participate in investor readiness training with GoBeyond, and 30 companies pitched directly to a panel of cross border investors. Some 40 mentorship and coaching meetings were pre-organised and several companies had the opportunity to exhibit in the networking area of the Congress.

Customised Support Plans and Cross border investment

Following the meetings in Milan, the mentors worked closely with the companies to elaborate their Internationalisation Action Plans. The measures implemented will be customised for each participating company to address their specific internationalisation goals and challenges, as identified by the participants with the support of their local mentors.

In the last 6 months ACE as always concentrated large efforts in providing its companies with more international pitching opportunities, including e-pitching organised with GoBeyond and the sister project European Investor Gate.

Final stretch – ACE Award

In the months coming, ACE approaches the end of its official funding period. With over 100 companies supported to date and many still in the pipeline, ACE is striving to provide long standing and sustainable support to its companies. The ACE Award, recognising excellence in early-stage internationalisation of our ICT SMEs will soon open for nominations. The prize for most impressive international growth is to be awarded at the 2015 Annual EBN Congress, to take place on 28-30 October in Brussels.

Contact us:

Several ACE partners remain available to provide internationalisation support until the end of the summer 2015. If your company is interested in participating please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or contact your nearest ACE partner.

Stay tuned to hear more about our companies’ progress. Read some of our start-up stories here and stay up to date on our partners’ and companies’ activities through our Twitter feed.